FACTORS IN MENTAL HEALTH AND ILLNESS 577 



It is quite probable, too, that there is a mere disintegration of the 

 personality without its destruction by an organized trend ; such a one is 

 certainly impossible to demonstrate in many cases. 



Here, too, it is easier to observe than to measure, and there is no 

 telling now if the degree of personal integration for very complicated 

 reactions will ever be brought under experimental control ; for the lower 

 psychomotor levels of reaction, however, there is considerably better 

 hope. 



I will quote two instances of the way in which this disintegration of 

 personality is spoken of by the cases themselves. It is not often clearly 

 expressed, dementia precox cases being commonly inaccessible. First 

 in the case of a young woman of twenty-five, with nothing very definite 

 appearing in the previous history. At various times in the psychosis 

 she makes such utterances as these: 



My mind seems to be in layers like strata in geology. . . . Something seems 

 to push my mind into channels I don't want it to be in. ... I don't know why 

 I think of these things. I seem to be bound to find out a lot of things I am not 

 interested in, as if some one was teasing me. It makes me feel frightened, as if 

 I was changing to something else. It is like the difference between a good and 

 a bad person. All at once I seem to wish somebody would die. I don 't mean it, 

 of course, but I can't keep it down. ... If I could gather up a good will it 

 would be all right. Instead these vague ideas seem to be wandering all around 

 as if you were going through a sort of labyrinth. ... I can't say anything I 

 want to. It is like going through a river where there are a lot of weeds and they 

 get in your way and you can't get through. ... I seem to be imagining a lot 

 of things. I can 't get my mind together. ... I seem all of a sudden to sink 

 right down into deep thoughts as though I were covered up in a snow-bank. 

 Whether it is a loss of the train of thought or of the spirit I don't know — it 

 seemed as if my mind had been crushed back and I had lost control. ... I try 

 to use my mind but there is no thought there; it is empty. Somebody takes my 

 mind away every two seconds. ... If they want something to experiment on 

 let them take a rabbit. I want my intellect. 



And a young man of about thirty, of shut-in personality, and of 

 somewhat coarser mental fiber than the previous case, expresses him- 

 self in this way, with more delusional coloring, the disconnected frag- 

 ments of his own personality being rationalized as "spirits." 



My life is apparently in the hands of others the way I am now situated. . . . 

 It seems as though the air about me were made thicker; it is condensed about me 

 so that it gives the spirits some support, foundation, to act and carry on. . . . 

 It is a peculiar trick for strangers to use other strangers in that light. ... I 

 feel as if I was supporting this column of spirit realm, as you might say, and I 

 was wondering whether if hundreds of other spirits came into it if I could stand 

 the tension. . . . The more persons that enter, the greater the tension, and in the 

 last analysis I don 't like any such existence. I am a human being the same as 

 any one else, and I want my freedom and independence. . . . The spirits show 

 themselves through voices, forms and various practises; they are very clever 

 about some of their practises and cover them up. Any spirit that enters this 

 realm can gauge the clearness and distinctness of the form — they can make them- 



